Wilkins Aerodrome pack down
The Wilkins Aerodrome is only officially open for 4 - 5 months of the year over Summer each season. However, part of the crew need to winter over in order to pack down, winterise assets, perform mechanical servicing and set back up to be ready to receive aircraft at the beginning of next summer.
I arrived on the second last flight of the season in order to have a handover of around a week before some of the summer team head home. I have previously worked in the program as a Field Training Officer but I am new to the Aviation team. The outgoing crew crammed my brain with inductions, instructions and procedures for equipment, vehicles, buildings, maintenance and projects and then departed on the last flight on March 6th. They did a great job to set us up and they worked right down to the wire to leave us with a good head start toward our pack down work.
The next three weeks involved decommissioning the runway surface and associated infrastructure. The entire camp is moved to various winter locations about 1km away to manage the snow accumulation at the summer camp, workshop and equipment laydown areas.
Trade teams travelled up from Casey for overnight trips during the pack down phase. Electricians, plumbers, Bureau of Meteorology and communications technicians arrived to inspect, decommission, service and transport parts of their work areas. In addition to these standard trips we are very grateful to have received extra support from Casey in the form of two iterations of an extra staff member for a week at a time. Harrison the Chippy and Mitch the Plumber spent a week each at Wilkins during pack down. As well as project and maintenance work in their specialty areas they were fantastic help in all other day to day tasks. We also had diesel mechanics Alex and Blinky helping with some ice road trucking jobs transporting equipment and vehicles down to Casey for our Winter work schedule.
The Winter Wilkins team was planned as a team of five. Unanticipated circumstances resulted in two members leaving at the end of summer. Luckily we have Andy the Mechanic and Larko the Plant Operator who are hard working and talented in their roles. The support from Casey during our pack down to provide a fourth staff member was crucial and appreciated as so much of our work is done as pairs for ergonomic, efficiency, safety and compliance reasons.
We moved the 70km down to Casey station in late March and have enjoyed some rest via a well timed string of public holidays. Andy and Larko have completed their field travel training and overall we have felt very welcomed in our winter Casey home. We have a long list of mechanical works, stock takes, asset repairs and maintenance to keep us busy and we try to help with station works and snow clearing where we can.
Happy wintering,
Sean Murray – Wilkins Aerodrome Manager
